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Inflation soared over the past year at its highest rate in four decades, hammering America’s consumers, wiping out pay raises and reinforcing the Federal Reserve’s decision to begin raising borrowing rates across the economy, Associated Press reported.

The Labor Department said Thursday that consumer prices jumped 7.5% last month compared with 12 months earlier, the steepest year-over-year increase since February 1982. Shortages of supplies and workers, heavy doses of federal aid, ultra-low interest rates and robust consumer spending combined to send inflation accelerating in the past year.

When measured from December to January, inflation was 0.6%, the same as the previous month and more than economists had expected. Prices had risen 0.7% from October to November and 0.9% from September to October.

There are few signs that inflation will slow significantly anytime soon. Most of the factors that have forced up prices since last spring remain in place: Wages are rising at the fastest pace in at least 20 years. Ports and warehouses are overwhelmed, with hundreds of workers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation’s busiest, out sick last month. Many products and parts remain in short supply as a result.

Nepal logged 1, 369 new Covid-19 cases and 12 deaths on Thursday. 

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 8,880 swab samples were tested in the RT-PCR method, of which 1,013 returned positive. Likewise, 3,000 people underwent antigen tests, of which 365 tested positive.

With this, the country's active caseload mounted to 1,170,986. Similarly, the death toll has climbed to 11,864.

The Ministry said that 2,238 infected people recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours.

Meanwhile, the Kathmandu Valley reported 239 new cases today.

According to the Ministry, 235 cases are reported in Kathmandu, 64 in Lalitpur and 30 in Bhaktapur.

The Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation has scrapped the license of Hotel Yak and Yeti to operate the casino.

Issuing a statement, Mohan Bahadur GC, Director at the Tourism Department, said that the ministry has also scrapped the 5-star rating certificate of the hotel.

Hotel Yak and Yeti has been accused of not paying royalty despite issuing the notice over and over again in the past.

According to the department, the hotel owes Rs 422.586 royalty to the Nepal government.

The ministry had issued a license in the name of the hotel to operate the casino on January 6,1992. 

"The government decided to scrap the license as per the casino regulation 2070 (14) after the hotel failed to clear outstanding payments owed to the government," the statement read.

The government has also decided to hold the immovable asset and freeze all the bank accounts until the hotel pays the amount.

The government has urged not to operate the casino and hotel.

SpaceX has lost dozens of satellites after they were hit by a geomagnetic storm a day after launch, causing them to fall from orbit and burn up.

Such solar "storms" are caused by powerful explosions on the sun's surface, which spit out plasma and magnetic fields that can hit the Earth.

The company, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, said up to 40 of 49 satellites from last week's launch were hit.

They had been due to join its Starlink satellite internet project.

Starlink is Mr Musk's bid to provide high-speed internet using thousands of orbiting satellites.

The system is relatively expensive, but can be used in places where wired connections cannot. For example, in Tonga, where January's earthquake severed the island's nation's undersea data cable, a Starlink station is being built in nearby Fiji to help restore access.

The latest 49 satellites were deployed about 210km (130 miles) above the Earth's surface. SpaceX said "each satellite achieved controlled flight" after being sent up on 3 February.

However, a day later, the geomagnetic storm hit the Earth. It is the same kind of mechanism that creates aurorae like the Northern Lights, but it can have dangerous effects too.

This storm warmed up the atmosphere and made it much more dense than expected.

"Onboard GPS suggests the escalation speed and severity of the storm caused atmospheric drag to increase up to 50% higher than during previous launches," SpaceX said.

SpaceX tried to put the satellites into a "safe mode", turning them to fly edge-on to minimise drag.

The drag was strong enough to stop the satellites ever getting out of that "safe mode" and back into the orbit they needed to reach to be stable. Instead, "up to 40" will fall back into the Earth's atmosphere and burn up.

Jacob Geer, the UK Space Agency's Head of Space Surveillance, said he does not expect "any part" of the satellites to hit the ground.

"Events like this are a reminder that space is challenging - getting satellites or astronauts into orbit is still not easy," he said.